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Simply

So for someone who likes their assumptions in small doses and simply stated, how does altruism in the utilitarian sense (beyond the old saw of god and country) serve the greater good?

Is altruism only a vestigial evolutionary appendage of our cultural past?

My best guess is that no system theory yet fully explains away the greater good of an altruistic act (often committed without deep aforethought to its likely effect of a greater good).

I abhor systems in practice. Obeyed, they decay and stratify into old weathered icons like statues to the gods. In theory, however, some are just fine as working models of almost perfection.

Still, altruism in the individual state continues to live on.

by a reader on Sun, 04/29/2007 - 14:42

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